The "Trump and Putin in bed together" imagery is still the focus of an "is this ...

This comment was posted to reddit on Aug 11, 2018 at 11:00 am and was deleted within 5 hour(s) and 33 minutes.

The "Trump and Putin in bed together" imagery is still the focus of an "is this homophobia?" controversy.

Idk, this all feels so dumb. Why should I give a fuck about this? I'm not convinced it's homophobic and I sincerely doubt anyone got less tolerant from seeing these cartoons. NYT op-eds are where ideas go to die; who even reads them other than well-meaning but generally misinformed bougie libs?

The Late Show host Stephen Colbert provided a notorious example when he presented his audience with an image of Trump and Putin riding a unicorn together, Putin in a full face of makeup. The crux of the joke, the common argument goes, is that Putin, who has instituted anti-gay laws in Russia, hates gay people, and therefore it is hilarious to depict him as gay. It’s his (and Trump’s) homophobia that is being mocked, not gayness.
[...]
These jokes are homophobic, full stop.

Oh, come on. So like, is Perfume Genius (one of the gayest musicians out there) a homophobe for making this Eminem t-shirt?